The biggest problem I see with cantservatives and liarberals is they are both willing to kill anyone who will not do as they demand. And, do as they demand. Death awaits no matter the choice made.

I'd appreciate someone proving me wrong, but it can't happen. (sigh).

DO AND DIE

In the war on guns (ar har har!) the biggest offender is rarely discussed. How about taking guns away from a group of people who killed 54 million in about seven years? Not unborn babies, but people already born.

In case you wonder, the decision to kill people was unanimous many times and an overwhelming majority the rest of the time.

More recent? Ok. Only one member of Congress voted AGAINST military action against Afghanistan. De Juri, this is was not a war. De Facto, eh well, that's why so many lawyers are in Congress.

Iraq? Again the "left" and the "right" saw fit to kill people.

DON'T AND DIE

Vietnam draft. Again, L & R united to kill people. While the reasons for this war are a varied as the people who talk about it ... never mind.

If you served in Vietnam, thank you for your service. If you served or served in the military, thank you for your service. You deserve better than this country provides.

Kent State

Waco. Which included children dying.

Ruby Ridge. A woman who was NOT wanted on any criminal charges was killed.

All the police shootings people are so excited about these days.

I could go on and on, but shan't.

DON'T AND GET RAPED

We are also hearing a metric s-ton about sexual assault. Once again, the L and the R unite to make sure if you do not do as they say, you run the very real risk of being physically raped. Don't pay income taxes? You stand an excellent chance of getting raped. Don't show up for court for a speeding ticket? Run the risk of being raped.

This situation can be handled but the L & R are happy with the current state of affairs. If they were not, things would change.

The sad truth is, the L & R crowd (and they are one in the same) are CAVE people with extreme NIMBY tendencies.

CRUEL & UNUSUAL

The US Constitution prohibits cruel & unusual punishment. This is a moving standard in the US. What was not C&U 150 years ago is today. We don't legally hang horse theives any more.

However, an insulated judiciary and out-of-touch legislative and executive branch decide what C&U are these days. Again, on this issue the L &  R in power are of one accord. For that matter. most of the plebes are in lockstep.

If you are an L or an R, I invite you to prove me wrong. Prove. Not just espouse opinions. Give me hard data and hard facts.

I am not interested in potential reasons for these deaths, assaults and so on. I am not interested in justifications. Excuses will be ridiculed. Besides which, once you start down that path, then "the end justifies the means" applies to everything. Speak to me of reality, cold hard facts.

If the truth hurts, then beat me up if you think you can. You can't.

Proof also requires a statement of who you voted to put into office.  Because, yanno, actions speak louder than words. Voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil.

Michael Jackson got it right

I'm starting with the man in the mirror
I'm asking him to change his waysAnd no message could have been any clearerIf you want to make the world a better placeTake a look at yourself, and then make a change
Much truth packed into those words.


Which is the first introduction to today's dose of what we all hope is coherent.

Intro 2

Me brother in ink John LeViness asked on FB what are the two most life-changing events in your life except for getting married and a having a child.

I replied:

Accepting a faith

Forgiving

BELIEF

For me, accepting the Christian theology is not a matter of just belief. It is acceptance of what I see as truth.

I rewrote this several times. The 2 sentences above are as close as I've gotten to getting it right.

FORGIVING

I've written on this before. Won't belabor the point again.

I add this - Forgiving does not mean forgetting. It means remembering without hate.

I have a LONG way to go on this one.

In search of less hostility

If you lurk my FB feed, you mighta noticed something.

Lot less politics. Lot less divisive stuff. Lot more jokes, fun stuff and things to make people smile. If you did not notice this, you have now. Still gonna be a political post now & then. I am a political animal.

This is intentional.

I am tired of the hate. I am tired of the invective. So I made a change. I changed the way I post.

I look for good stuff to share. I want to see good stuff.

HATE EVERYBODY EQUALLY

Yassee, I'm of the opinion we ought to hate everybody equally.

That is a sentence 80 percent or more people who read it will misunderstand.

Semantically, it means exactly the same as "we ought to love everybody equally."

Yes, it does. Parse the words. The only qualifiers are "everybody" and "equally."

I'm also gonna continue to post things to try to make people think.

SEE YA!

I do not tolerate ad hominem on my pages. Someone does that. SEE YA! Dropped, block & banned.

When someone attacks me on another page, the boot is swift there as well.

I do not attack people who comment in threads on my page or others' pages. I realize this may be a novel concept.

I will try to explain. I will do my best to understand the other person's POV. I do really enjoy that. Had other people tell me the same.

SCARY THOUGHTS

I've been blocked by others because they don't want to hear my reasoned comments. Scary thoughts are enough to make the most courageous adult pull the covers over his head and start chanting a security mantra.

I feel sorry for them. Sometimes. I'm bastard enough to laugh at them too, especially when things do not go according to their perception of reality.

BYE FELICIA

In closed, I have Fluff Busting Purity overlaid on FB. This is far more effective than Ad Blocked at killing ads on FB. It also has custom filters, that allow me to block posts with certain words. Bye Felicia!

Current blocks?

trump
clinton
Trump
Clinton
Roseanne Barr
border
Kapernick
Colin Kaepernick
Kavanaugh
Nike

Is one other on the list, but you don't need to know that 'cause it is personal.

The list changes with the current news and Rage du Jour. Does it catch all of 'em? Nope. Better'n 80 percent though. I'll live with that.

Meantime, supper is about done and I'm hungry.

The mill doth grind

How many times have you heard something about yourself that was not true?

Did it make you mad? Did you want to go adjust someone's attitude?

Think about the last malicious gossip you heard about yourself.

Don't you WISH people would just come to you and get the truth?

Now that I have you riled up and bent in several directions...

How many times have you spread rumors about someone?

Ooooo. That sound I just heard musta been your toes breaking as I stepped all over 'em.

Rather than spread rumors, why doncha do one of two things?

1) Keep yo damfool mouf shut.

2) Keep yo damfool mouf shut.

If you cannot keep your piehole closed, then do everyone a favor. Go to the person you are gossiping about. Ask that person to tell you the truth. Then, see options 1 and 2 above.



You already admitted you want people to stop gossiping about you. You already admitted you want people to come and ask you about the truth.

Do the right thing. As we learned in Kindergarten, "do unto others as you want them to do to you."

Meantime, let the liars say what they will. You won't stop them. The mill doth grind.

The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones. William Shakespeare

Disposable memories

Just cannot do it.

Can't, I tell you, can't.

Need to. Really need to.

But, but, but...

These old computers at the office need to have space cleared up. I need to trash files. Need to get rid of old stuff

I  tried. I really did.

But I made the mistake of opening one of the old files, a picture file.

Pictures. Oy.

Ever looked at pictures of your great-grandparents? Ever look at old Polaroid pictures of yourself (if you are that old)?

Love them pix, right?

OLD PICTURES

Years ago, we had more than a bushel of old print photographs at the office. We opened the box to the public. People came in left and right to look through the pix for images of themselves, family and so on.

David Baldwin took the remainders and tried to get them to people who'd appreciate the pictures.

Pictures matter. They take us back. They remind us how far we've come. They tell us stories.

DISPOSABLE MEMORIES

I have image files in this computer I write from that are 20 years old. I open them every now and then and resave them.

Why? To make sure the format is current, Make sure the computer can still open the image. Make sure the software is a recent version.

This is important. I have electronic files that I can still open. The most modern version of the creating software will not open the original files.

Our pictures are disposable memories these days. Snap one. Post it to social media and forget about by tomorrow. Change phones, lose phones, clear out old pictures to make space for new ones. Disposable.

SAVING THE PAST

It was not always so.

In the course of a year, I probably take 10,000 pictures or more. Digital. That is 10,000 instances frozen in time. That is 10,000 points of time recorded for .. all eternity? No. A few minutes? No. A few months? Getting closer. A year or three? Yeah. That's it.

When we still used film, if I shot 40 pictures in a week, that was HUGE.

Hours in the darkroom. Chemicals that could peel the hide off. Develop. Stop. Fix. Dry. When everything was done, clip the negatives and file 'em.

We saved the past.

Not any more.

Shoot, dump, pick, edit and trash the rest.

Gone forever, unless it makes it into an archive.

Many people have said once it gets online, it is there forever. It only seems like it. Websites come and go. Images get lost; they really do.

How many pictures have you lost over the years to system upgrades, computer crashes, lost or replaced phones, dead SIM cards?

Yeah.

Disposable memories.

So, I just can't dump these old files. These pictures mean something to someone.

I wish I knew how to get these pictures to the people who will appreciate them enough to save them for future generations.